The end of MCQBushcraft as we know it.......

Description

I've been making Youtube videos since 2011, Well actually 2012 according to YouTube but I swear it was 2011... Perhaps I lost a year in a bag of trail mix... Anyway, in this video I get some stuff off my chest with regards to YouTube, Bushcraft and why you don't see me filming much if any of my camp outs anymore. Enjoy the video and thanks for watching.

PS: to everyone who watched the last video on Men's Mental Health, thank you! It was amazing to see so many people talk about the things they found challenging. I'm still going through the comments and replying as best I can. Thanks again and take care

MCQBushcraft:

If your interested in Bushcraft & Survival skills, fishing, hunting, fire lighting, plants & mushrooms, camp cooking, shelter building, self reliance, wilderness & primitive living skills, weaving plant fibers, knives, axes, saws and maintaining these tools in the field and much much more then check out my channel page below for playlists and more videos.

Thanks to Paul Tremble Photography for letting me use some of your photos - https://www.instagram.com/paul_tremble/

All my Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/user/MCQBushcraft/videos

Check out my Shop for handmade products and more:

http://www.mcqbushcraft.co.uk/shop/

Have a look at my Amazon Stores:

UK Store - http://astore.amazon.co.uk/mcqbushcraft-21

US Store - http://astore.amazon.com/mcq-20

Follow me on Social Media:

Connect On My Website - http://www.MCQBushcraft.co.uk

Connect On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MCQBushcraft

Connect On Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/mcqbushcraft1

Connect On Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/MCQBushcraft

Tags: bushcraft skills uk,mcqbushcraft adventure,mcqbushcraft sweden,mcqbushcraft gear,bushcraft skills,mcqbushcraft road trip,mcq bushcraft,mcqbushcraft lapland,bushcraft sweden youtube,mcqbushcraft fishing lapland,mcqbushcraft fishing sweden,bushcraft sweden,bushcraft camping adventures,mcq bushcraft sweden,rooftop tent europe,mcqbushcraft backpack,mcqbushcraft europe,rooftop tent northern europe,traveling northern europe,mcqbushcraft overland

Video Transcription

we can't sit on my lap can you make it too big Monty Monty Monty anyway give me this big old boy boy start the show monster mate

hi guys mic from MC ki bushcraft here I've got months here as well or lumpa says you probably know him better us we're just that here up this mountain we came up the trail that someone tipped us off about decided to investigate do a bit of exploring the last time I was up here it was a clear day we had fantastic views across the wilderness there and the temperatures were about minus 10 minus 12 in the day and it was dropping below minus 20 at night at one point very cold now it's two degrees and this is probably the only place that I've been to today or I've seen the snow subtle but the cold is coming and before it does and before the snow really hit so I want to come out to areas like this as much as I can we've got a map at home on the wall and I tell Meg where I'm going sometimes if she can't come with me and she knows kind of when I'm coming back as well because you've got to be careful too I've got a lot of prep in the car if things go wrong then you know I've got the ability to stay out here for a duration of time until I can get in contact with her or somebody else and they can come help me out but this video is going to be about what's happening on my channel MC Key bushcraft I started the channel back in 2011 it's a long time long the video early videos actually aren't even there anymore because there's such poor audio quality but the techs come a long way now and I've got some better gear so you can probably tell I just wanted to communicate to you about where I stand with the channel get some stuff off my chest and kind of just share it with you from my perspective and also tell you about a bit of a change it's gonna happen on the channel but mcq bushcraft originally started off as bushcraft stuff you probably know my history I've always loved the outdoors since I was a kid and but I went into graphic design and I've always been really interested in illustration and that's what I studied and I went into the graphic design business and and then started the YouTube channel just as a hobby and then that kind of grew and then I decided to try and get a job as a bushcraft instructor and I got a job working in the Forest of Dean and crazily I was working five days a week and I'm volunteering as a voluntary instructor learning in the Forest of Dean every weekend and I did that for a year it was really hard work but eventually they gave me a job it was real sketchy actually and a friend got a good friend of mine out there who who was on my very first course and they just turned around to me and said write this course is yours he got 30 people it's gonna be 2 days you've got to come up with the syllabus and yeah we'll be back to pick you up in in a few days time and I was like oh I was terrified but that was my first paid course and then after that I was working as an instructor and training with other instructors doing the YouTube channel the channel grew it started bringing in some money and then I really put the time into the channel doing a couple of videos a week and it was really about tutorial stuff and a bit of experience stuff as well in there like me on multi-day camping trips and everything that's probably where my channels started off and a little fast track on the background of how it began and obviously I called it mcq bushcraft because my name's Michael McQuillan and bushcraft is what everybody identifies the subjects I was talking about on the channel with that's what we all know it has now it's a very big widely used commercial word bushcraft and when you think bushcraft do you think Scandinavian grind knives and sheaths feather sticks campfires tarps backpacks and you know wool jumpers and beards and woolly hats and leather whistles and leather no else I even know of the leather whistles exist but that's kind of what we think of when we think bushcraft some of us out there and that's on the commercial side of things the reality is is it's actually a lot more than that and for me it's a lot more than that my major interests are in mushroom ID it was a big thing I did back in the UK I mean some of good mates minded that every year and a myriad of all others

I just can't go over and I'm doing this video because over the last year I've had a lot of emails sa lengthy emails a lot of messages on facebook and instagram oniy a few comments on YouTube now and then that kind of just create the picture for me that a lot of people want those old videos back they want me out in the woods again doing the bushcraft stuff that they know and love making campfires maybe taking the shot he ate with me and blasting a pigeon cooking it over the campfire and doing all that kind of stuff and and I understand why people want there it's a great escapism it's very entertaining and you know they love that kind of thing people love kind of just zoning into somebody else doing that kind of stuff and and switching off from their life and I did too before I started doing these videos and don't get me wrong there's another side to this but there's a lot of you out there just tuned in to the channel every now and then you don't care what I do

as long as it's good quality and it's interesting

and then you just tuned in and you watch it and you go that was good that was entertaining

I learned something there or you know you could have done that better idiot or whatever you think but you just tuned in every now and then you watch the content appreciate that they're putting it out there for free rather than email people and kind of like say to them this is why you need to do that etc etc and I subscribe to your channel and I expect this from you because I've subscribed and that's kind of the emails I've been getting and it's ever since me and Megan plans go on this trip and I started working in the garage on the jeep filming all of that and then we went on the trip obviously we didn't do that for YouTube we were just doing that anyway and I filmed it because it's great to record those things and there are people out there who are interested in that sort of thing and now we're here in Sweden and I guess those guys who are really kind of on the bushcraft stuff and want to see that the kind of expecting me to come back and with a bang now and suddenly see me out in the woods sticking up a tarp making a feather stick and cooking up a fire and uh and this is kind of where I need to communicate to you where I stand with that

because I started the channel because I love this kind of thing I love wilderness living skills I love nature and and I'm not really gonna go into that too much you know that already and when you love something like that when you film it all the time you sacrifice a little bit of that enjoyment to the camera in in exchange for making a video for those people who enjoy that and eventually take shorts its toll on you I come out in camp now and I don't really bring the camera with me because it's really important to me to maintain that balance of my love for this kind of thing to actually filming it and and those of you who run a channel you know the price of what I'm talking about there's a price to pay for getting out there all the time and filming and and if you rely on it for money I really do pity you I really do because if you start the channel about something you love and now it's become a financial thing for you it's only a matter of time before you burn out so that's why I you don't see much of that kind of video from me anymore because the channel started as mcq bushcraft me doing bushcraft fits and everything but it has to evolve and it will change and it is changing and and you might not you might not like that but it was never gonna be that way forever I was never gonna be out filming multi-day videos forever because I just well let's put it this way my enjoyment of coming out and camping means more to me than filming it and I don't think a lot of people realize that when they ask me to come out and do videos about camping or bushcraft as we'll call it so yeah I'm trying to communicate to you like how I'm feeling about all this and it's really difficult because the reality is I know a lot of people out there just don't care they just want to see me churn out the bushcraft while they sit there and eat baked beans and the reality is is it ain't care that I'm struggling with it you know filming it and everything and having a hard time and I'm not enjoying I'm not enjoying it as much as I would be if I didn't have the cam

there so that's kind of what I'm trying to say and that's why the channel is now gonna change channels changing ah change no one likes change I love change that's why I left the UK and lived in that for four months with Megan and came here change is healthy change for the batter's healthy so this is where I ask you the question you've seen me do Jeep videos where I built the Jeep and then traveled I created another channel could workshop wilderness adventures it's just about this thing here but all the work I was doing on it but I've kind of come to the point where I want my channel to be about a lot of different things in it and if you know anything about YouTube you'll know that that is a really bad thing to do if you want to grow a channel a channel that's varied is actually generally quite unsuccessful and you'll see that in my content what the when it varied like it really dropped off the face of the earth and I don't mind that because the end of the day I'm not in it for earning money or you know the views aren't bothering me anymore in that the subscribers aren't bothering me anymore in terms of figures I just want to produce interesting content that I love for people out there who are interested in watching it so you've seen me do videos where I'm here in Sweden and I'm gonna start to do stuff like ice fishing I was like the other day filming that I'm gonna do knife making with a friend of mine here who's starting a knife making business in the future and I want to do some stuff with him make my a knife with him I'm gonna be going out with a friend of mine here near me does husky sledding I'm probably gonna do some other stuff too with other people and then I'll be out in the Jeep with Megan will be camping and we might get our babies out and just do some stuff like that and we'll probably just show you our life here as and when it kind of is convenient for us in life in the wilderness in South Lapland and how it's going for us mixture of camping bushcraft wilderness living and just life out here bit of homesteading and that's kind of what the channel is gonna be so I'm gonna rename the channel I want to rename the channel I don't want it to be just mcq bushcraft anymore I want it to be MC ki bushcraft and something else like maybe MC ki bushcraft and wilderness life for MC q bushcraft in homesteading or MC q bushcraft and eggs on toast I don't know just something like that so my question is to you guys what do you think it should be and if I pick that's Jo I'll just say this now if I pick what you suggest it will be I'll send you some stuff in the post you know that I've made handmade

you know you can have it for free I'll cover the postage just as an incentive to actually make you common I didn't say that in the title because I don't just want to attract people who just want to get free stuff I want my regular viewers to tune in you liked watching my stuff and hearing me talk rubbish and actually interact and you know get it's Christmas and you can have some free stuff from me what it'll be I'm not going to tell you but it'll be really cool and you'll really like it and yeah I'm sure I'm sure you'll love it as a Christmas present so that's my incentive for you and that's where the channels gonna go and I own a that might upset some people because you want the old diehard mcq moles come hit come here to Mars because you want the old diehard mcq back doing is wilderness trips and you might get that again but understand that my enjoyment has to be invested in it and if I don't want to do that I'm not going to I'm not paid by anyone to come out here and and do this it's just me it's just my hobby doing videos and I love making videos that I've invested my passion into and and putting them together and editing them I faced fun I enjoy that and uh you know if it gives somebody some pleasure out there and they enjoy it some escapism from their life then that's great you know people email me and say that it's helped them of their mental health and and that helps me it helps my mental health knowing that I've helped somebody else out there but at the same time I have to consider my own feelings on the subject and yeah anyway that's my two cents I hope you enjoyed this video and thanks for watching and maybe just give me your feedback in the comment section below and you know if I pick a comment I'll try and get in touch with you somehow they've stopped the YouTube messages so if you comment and I send my reply to your comment I have to give you an email address and hopefully there'll be no people in there kind of hijacking it and trying to get free stuff and I know there will be there's some real scammers out there gotta watch out from them scammers anyway I'll see you soon take care thanks for watching appreciate you listening and uh take care again he's so soft man they stop all right with dad for a little excursion you're out if that that's it oh it's good job in the wilderness isn't it well just bogies hanging out with those everywhere right mate yeah oh it's just max time it's tournaments tanner

there he is the old dog acts you